Alice in Chains
Sap

Mom, music critics, and the self-righteous (the latter two often tend to coincide) have always taught me that extended plays, the so-called EPs, are often nothing more than already mediocre productions, the offspring of advertising operations that are at least reckless.
But don't worry, that's not the case here! No, because Sap is neither a last-minute patch-up nor a diorama of the music business!
It was way back in March 1992 when Columbia Records released this little marvel.
At that time, Seattle was the epicenter of creativity, style, and big green bills.
The music scores of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were already on the lips (and microphones) of many, and their LPs resonated 24/7 in the rooms of an entire generation of disenchanted teenagers searching for who knows what...
Only Staley and Co. were missing the toast at this point.
Facelift, the predecessor album, although extremely raw and immature, was promising, but then, when you least expect it, the northwestern radios began spinning a grunge never heard before: with halved decibels, acoustic and with an overwhelming emotiveness never heard before.
The "party and asses" sound of the '80s is now a distant memory, as is already the hysteria of the first "dirty" wave... more baroque works like Jar of Flies or more studied ones like the Unplugged sessions of the mid-decade are nothing more than chimeras.

"Brother", the opening track of Sap, is an anthem to friendship. The melancholy, enveloping from the start, is the central theme of this ballad with tribal-blues hues. Layne and Jerry begin to ceaselessly court each other, recording those unmatched and indispensable vocal interweavings that would become the true trademark of the band's entire output. The atmosphere is suffering and subdued but suspended, at least until a shared lament confesses to us

"You've always been so far away
I know this pain, so don't run away
Like you used to do"

Autobiographical? The verdict on that is for posterity...

Then it's the turn of "Got Me Wrong," the track, in my opinion, of the lowest level in the work, not so much from a technical perspective but rather an emotional one. Too grunge, some would say; too little grunge, others would say ("try making sense of this grunge").
The electric guitar takes center stage again, and the Kinney-Starr rhythm section hits hard. The harmony is on the brink of wobbling, the melodies almost off-key and, as if that wasn't enough, the song stops abruptly... and yet, it still has its own reason!

We're already halfway through the work, it seems absurd, but the best is yet to come…

"Right Turn" is a semi-acoustic masterpiece. Signed Alice Mudgarden, it features the collaboration, and hence the name, of Chris Cornell from Soundgarden and Mark Arm from Mudhoney. The first's performance is amazing, an exponential crescendo to the point of suffocation, the other has chilling middle-lows, indeed from the beyond! The three vocalists play around with the notes of a bittersweet, moderately cunning chorus, creating an insatiable ensemble that feels a lot like a jam session or, as someone suggested, a beach gathering among old friends...
P.S. forget about star-spangled blonde girls and sultry midnight swims.

The album dies with "Am I Inside"… in the true sense of the word. Space suddenly dissolves just as time does, forever! Staley barely supported by a trembling acoustic whispers

"Loneliness it shadows me, quicker than darkness
Crawls to the surface of my skin, visibly surrounded by it
Black is all I feel, so this is how it feels to be free"

It's cold… the eschatological drift of the piece is apocalyptic, at times ethereal. No hope, no illusion is now contemplated anymore. Only on the chorus, for an instant, ephemeral for sure, does the song seem to resurrect… to plunge again into darkness until silence first and oblivion later dissolve everything.

Listening to Sap, now as then, is not for everyone.
There are people who, lucky for them (depends), will never encounter it!

Judgment: misunderstood, thrilling...

satellite.